Amado Ramírez Dillanes

Televisa and Radiorama

April 6, 2007, in Acapulco, Mexico

Ramírez,
50, Acapulco-based correspondent for Televisa and host of the daily news
program “Al Tanto” on Radiorama, was shot after leaving Radiorama studios about
7:30 p.m. Ramírez had just stepped into his car when an assailant shot him
twice from outside the driver’s window, a colleague told CPJ. A wounded Ramírez
ran into the lobby of a nearby hotel, but the attacker followed and shot the
journalist in the back, according to press reports.

Within
days, state officials detained two men, one of whom was soon released. The
other suspect, Genaro Vázquez Durán, was convicted and sentenced in March 2009
to 38 years in prison. Federal authorities said Vázquez matched a description
provided by witnesses and possessed illegal weapons of the type used in the
murder. Vázquez’s lawyer told reporters that he would appeal.

Local
human rights groups and journalists have expressed concern that no clear motive
was established, that witnesses implicating Vázquez were not credible, and that
some witnesses could not be placed at the crime scene. One witness, Salvador
Cabrera, told an Acapulco
court in November 2007 that he had been coerced into identifying Vázquez in a
police lineup.

The
Guerrero state attorney general’s office and the federal special prosecutor for
crimes against journalists did not respond to CPJ’s requests for comment.

Ramírez’s
death occurred as rival drug cartels were battling for turf and engaging in
waves of execution-style killings in and around Acapulco. In March 2007, he had aired a
Televisa report linking the murders of local police officers to drug
traffickers. Misael Habana de los Santos,
Ramírez’s co-host at Radiorama, said the journalist had received several death
threats by cell phone.